Crosses
by ttfan111robstar1
Summary: Steve contemplates what the cross has meant to him throughout the years. One-Shot. Rated T for religious fundamentalism.


**A/N: I own nothing, especially the idea for the closet- that came from Stephen King's book Carrie, which is one of my favorite novels. Go read it if you like a good horror novel! It's amazing! Hope you all enjoy this!**

Steve sat in his room, thinking. It was Sunday- a holy day, reserved for rest and worship.

He looked around the room. The room itself was blue- a lighter blue that was close to the blue of his suit- and had white trimming. There was a double door closet adjacent to the bed, and next to it were his dress blues- Hanging in a glass case. There was a cross beside that, which held the dying Christ nailed to it, face twisted with suffering. The wall next to it was mostly coated with his various sketches, but occasionally a framed picture popped up. There was one of himself, Peggy, and the commandoes. It hung at the center of the wall. The wall that held his bed had a nightstand propped against it- which was almost bare except for an old-fashioned alarm clock and his parents wedding photo, which he set at an angle to see their happy faces looking at him. The bed itself was a simple twin bed with a metal frame. He had insisted on something simple (Because Tony had wanted to give him a California King bed but the thought had made him uneasy) and the metal frame reminded him of his days in the Army barracks. There was a window on the other side of the wall. The fourth wall held his brown dresser, desk with a lamp and sketchbook on it, a small bookshelf beside that, and a record player (For he could not get used to the idea of a portable music player).

His eyes landed on his parent's wedding photo. They had been married two years before Momma had had him. Momma had told him once that she had been scared to have him, because she had been pregnant before, but the baby had died. But he had somehow survived, as small as a three-month premature baby when he'd been full term. He'd spent four months in the hospital's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit before he had been deemed healthy enough to go home.

His eyes landed on the cross, and he paused. It was Sunday, and he hadn't gone to Mass.

Momma and Daddy had been devout Catholics. They went to every Mass that was offered, and he often wondered as a child how they could go to those services all those times and still work. They had taken him to Mass as a child, and it had been the time that they'd spent as a family. He had been so happy back then.

Then, the war happened, and, at four years old, his Daddy had been taken from him.

After Daddy had died, Momma had changed. Although they had been poor, she had filled the house with crosses and religious pictures. Steve had woken up to Jesus staring at him from the cross one morning, and had jumped out of his skin. She still attended Mass regularly, but had become fundamentalist in her beliefs. With his father dead and his own poor health, it had seemed that God was the only constant she'd had. She'd made the closet of the Master Bedroom into a chapel, and he remembered it all too clearly. on the floor had been cushions for kneeling and a single Gold Cross at the end of it. The lightbulb- one of the few they'd possessed at the time- had always been swinging with it's bright glow casting shadows on the other half of the closet. It was symbolic, Momma had said. There was sin in the darkness and light in Christ.

When he'd been little, the cross had meant happiness and family. When he'd gotten older, it had become a fixed presence that he often loathed.

When Momma was angry at him or felt he had sinned, she would shut the closet door with the swinging light, leaving him to stare at the glittering cross. It was pure and good, so by default he was not. The closet wasn't always for sin, though- sometimes Momma worshipped in there, filling it with her droning prayers and goodness. He hated the smell the most. The apartment they lived in was a crumbling building where the plumbing and insulation was awful. Most of the pipes had rusted over and the closet had conversely stunk of the rust that fowled the pipes. Not to mention the smell of Daddy's old shoes (Which Momma kept because she couldn't bear to throw them away), and the stench of his sweat and sin.

As he'd grown further, the cross had changed meaning again.

When his Momma had died, and he'd been sent to the orphanage, crosses had been everywhere along the walls. It was, of course, a Catholic orphanage. The only thing he'd had left of his Momma and Daddy were Daddy's black bible, his parent's wedding photo, and Momma's little gold cross. The cross had become a source of constancy in a world that kept changing. He felt awful then about loathing it before. When he visited the hospital, the crosses followed him there as well. It was comforting- God was everywhere. Always watching him.

The final change in meaning had come when he'd been in the army.

The day before he'd gone to basic training, he'd asked Jesus into his heart. As he'd gone on missions, he'd missed Mass more often than he liked. Often he went to see the Chaplin, and saw the cross there in his office. It was peace and security- safety in the face of danger.

When he was little, he hadn't understood why his Momma had latched onto God so strongly, but now he did.

God was forever- he couldn't expire like Daddy did or his Momma did. God was watching him and loving him and he hadn't understood that until then.

When he was going into the water, the shadow of the plane window had made a cross.

Now, as he stared at it, he felt that sense of constancy and peace again.

Getting up, he went to the bookshelf and got Daddy's black bible from the shelf. He stared at the Gold cross on the cover, and felt the weight of it in his hands. He blinked, a score of bad memories passing through his mind in an instant (Momma looking at him with her big eyes widened in disbelief and striking him across the face and ordering him into the closet) and some good (Jesus loves you). It was like the battle between God and the Devil themselves- only one could triumph.

Today, God triumphed. He sat back down on his bed and started reading.


End file.
